Category: Writing

Catching up

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

Again I have some posts sitting in Drafts that need some TLC before I push the Publish button. But I wanted to take a minute and reflect on how the creative process works for me.

I usually walk around every day with a pocket notebook and a pen. My current pen of choice is the Parker ’51 I purchased last year at the antique store. I write anything in the notebook, which includes lists, snippets of prose or poetry that comes to me, songs I like or books I may want to read.

But working my way from the back page forward, I’ll usually have a list of items that I want to look up. These include words or phrases (such as feedback loop or parsimonious); authors; artists; organizations; etc.

Many of these become posts eventually, or they sit in drafts. I don’t know that this matters to anyone, but it’s a glimpse into how I work these posts out a day at a time.

Managing

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

I’m considering the managers I know, and who’s doing good work and where some may falter. A while back I posted on leadership qualities. This one is standing out to me:

  • They thought and said “we” rather than “I.”

We’re all teams, and we work in teams. No person produces work alone. I wish all managers thought about the we a little bit more.

Writers on writing

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

I was writing this morning, wondering about how random thoughts (like journal entries) become complete works. I’ve read some of the journal entries of Thoreau, and letters of Alan Watts. But I started looking at which other writers kept journals (many did).

While I cull through the list I’m compiling, I have these rules from Vonnegut for writing fiction I thought I’d share:

Eight rules for writing fiction:

  1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
  2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
  3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
  4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
  5. Start as close to the end as possible.
  6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
  7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
  8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

— Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons 1999), 9-10.

Why I post daily

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

This was an easy decision to make, but slightly more challenging to put into practice. Some days I easily write four or five posts to queue up. Other days it’s challenging to put a sentence down.

The prompt was Seth Godin’s interview with Tim Ferris on The Tim Ferriss Show (ep. 138). “The first thing I would say is everyone should blog, even if it’s not under their own name, every single day. If you are in public making predictions and noticing things, your life gets better. Because you will find a discipline that can’t help but benefit you. If you want to do it in a diary, that’s fine. But the problem with diaries is because they’re private, you can start hiding. In public, in this blog, there it is. Six weeks ago you said this; 12 weeks ago you said that. Are you able, every day, to say one thing that’s new that you’re willing to stand behind? I think that’s just a huge, wonderful practice.”

I like looking at the world – its working philosophies; the creative industries; environmental concerns and conservation efforts; books and publishing; and many other things that come into my attention. If I’m lucky, I have an original thought about them.

At the very least I have something to say about what’s happening, or maybe I just to shine a light on it.

And the world needs perspectives – of all shades – to be shared.

Simplicity

by MAÔ, posted in Organization, Writing

When working towards simplifying life, it’s easy to forget to take care of certain things. Relationships, for one. And the quality of your relationships directly affects your well-being.

Remember to be honest with those closest to you, and honest with yourself. What are you trying to achieve? And why? Knowing your reasoning, and being able to communicate it, will go a long way towards easing your transition into a scaled-down lifestyle.

Adventuring

by MAÔ, posted in Travel, Writing

I think some of the things that make this world so amazing are the people who go out and live life like no other. Take for instance Leon McCarron. Contributing writer to Adventure Magazine, author of such books as The Land Beyond and The Road Headed West, he set out after University on a bike ride halfway around the world. Then decided to keep traveling.

According to McCarron:

“There was a time when explorers traveled to mark the blank spots on the map—but now, in the digital age with fast, inexpensive transportation to once-hidden corners of our world, there’s far less call for flag-planting.

Instead, I see the modern frontier of adventure as storytelling; using immersive, adventurous travel to uncover new ideas. Adventure also applies on a smaller scale, one that’s accessible for all. It can be a daily practice in which we choose to do something different, something that creates a new experience—and that can happen as easily in London as it can in Ladakh. Adventure is everywhere, if we know where to look.”

The challenge is to create those new experiences. Look for the miraculous in your everyday life.

Rearranging

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

After three years, I’ve changed my tagline. No longer am I trying to keep it together. Now it’s all about exploration. I’ll be changing the look and feel of the blog as well, though I’m still committed to daily postings.

That’s been a challenge, but one that’s kept me focused these past couple of months. I’m planning on some positive changes to complement some other of the other projects that I am working on. Hopefully I’ll have more to say on that before the end of the year.

And that’s coming up soon!

Purchases

by MAÔ, posted in Income, Writing

I’ve been on something of a spending moratorium. (I’m feeling broke, though I don’t like using that word. It implies something is wrong with me, rather than my financial footing. So when I’m telling myself that I need more work; that I’m broke –  I’ll usually stop and say, “I feel like I don’t have enough money.”)

Anyway, it seems that all the money I’m making goes towards bills, which has been the case for the past couple of months. However, there are some purchases I’ve made that have been well worth the investment.

First, my Sony noise-canceling headphones. I bought them just over a year ago now. They have been used while traveling, in meditation, for walks and occasionally exercise, and when I’m working at home. They are a marvelous invention, and for years I said I didn’t need them. Now I’m so glad I have a pair.

A Patagonia Better Sweater Fleece Vest. I think I got this early in the year, maybe around February. It was just starting to get warmer, and in Florida, we don’t think about cooler weather all that much. But again, I’m so glad I have it. I wore it for much of my time Alaska this summer, and it just hit the sixties here last night. Besides, I’ll be up in Pennsylvania later this month as well.

And finally, another purchase I’m loving this year, my Parker ’51 Fountain pen. Now, I bought this at an antique store for $5, so it wasn’t really a splurge. But I cleaned it up, and it works perfectly. My morning journal entries are written with a Lamy AL-Star fountain pen, but everything else I use my Parker for. I carry it with me everywhere. Currently, I’m filling it with a Pilot Iroshizuku teal ink.

And over the past twelve months, these have been my most used items. I was gifted a pocketknife that I carry with me everywhere. So that gets used a lot as well. But these items bring me a lot of joy. Every time I look at them or use them, I’m so glad that I have them.

That is what purchases should be. Something that will bring you continued joy over the course of their lives. Otherwise, it could just become clutter. (Don’t worry, I have that too…)

Man is the only animal that blushes

by MAÔ, posted in Pathfinding, Writing

At least, according to Mark Twain. Interestingly enough, the blush likely developed over many centuries; an evolutionary feature with the purpose of easing us out of uncomfortable situations. A visual representation of fight or flight.

Most of the time we turn away from those uncomfortable moments. But it is when we lean in, as Pema Chödrön says, that the truly miraculous can happen.

Weekly Rundown

by MAÔ, posted in Social, Writing

Yes, I think that has stuck. I like it. It’s kind of like my weekly check-in, but with less introspection. Just things that have caught my attention.

What I’m reading: Monsters Among Us: An Exploration of Otherworldly Bigfoots, Wolfmen, Portals, Phantoms, and Odd Phenomena by Linda S. Godfrey. I wanted to get one more seasonal read in before November. Well, what to say. Do you believe in spirit creatures, possessions, skin walkers, UFOs, or otherworldly portals? Or not? Either way, an interesting book broken down in case studies. 

Additionally, if you check out the @WerewolfReports bot on Twitter, you can keep updated on odd werewolf sightings… If you believe in that kind of thing.

What I’m listening to: Lore, from Aaron Mahnke. Specifically the Trick or Treat episodes from 2016 and 2017. But, listen to whatever you feel like. Or, watch the video series on Amazon Prime Video!

What I’m spending time with: Switching over my recording from Audacity to GarageBand. I host a radio show twice a week, which is prerecorded and aired on 107.1 WZEA. Until recently I had used Audacity. However, since updating the MacBook, my microphones don’t work for recording. There’s a cumbersome workaround, but I’d rather have a simple time making my episodes. So I’ve been looking at the GarageBand recording platform. It seems that there used to be a Podcast recording option, since removed, but it works fairly well. I’ll give it a try, and either continue on it, or switch back when the new update for Audacity comes out.

Other things of interest this week:

  • This article from Vice on what the absence of humanity would look like on Earth. It’s something similar to what I’ve been contemplating, like in Because one day we die. What do we individually leave behind? And, what as a species will be left?
  • Seth Godin on his late friend Lionel Poilane, who owned a bakery in Paris, Poilane’s  daughter Apollonia’s new book.
  • Looking to the future, my friend and I are planning a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. Doubtful it will be next year, because I’m looking to do some fun work over the summer, prime hiking time. So the possible start is March 18, 2021. We’ll see how our plans go between now and then.
  • Maria Popova on Thirteen Years of Brain Pickings. A great website, with great weekly emails.
  • Another listen: Marketplace’s Conversations from the Corner Office with Walking Dead Content Director Scott Gimple.